Before children, I always had a book in my hand. After children, books slid further and further down my priority list. Once in a blue moon I will get a book and savor the pleasure, but time and limited choices somehow prevent me from staying on the high that I get from a book. I love that all over groovy feeling when my rusty gears are spinning with a happy hum of ideas and possibilities. Once the gears come to a grinding halt from the salty flood of reality, the ride on the wave is forgotten. For this fleeting moment, I realize that I should always have my next fix book ready and waiting before I have completed the book in my purse. But I don’t. And I won’t. So, it will be ages before I read again. The upside of this reading amnesia is that while I forget what books do for me during my no book times, I also forget that reading brings out the addictive nature of my personality. Not only do I crave it, I am unable to stop reading mid-book. I furtively seek out every possible moment to read and at the end of a day of carrying that book everywhere, I finally settle in to my bed and read all night long. Mush brain without a book and hyper-fixated with a book. After a nap, the gears will have slowed down and I will return to auto-pilot.